


St Elmo's Fire

by sinumbral



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Post-Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Viera Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinumbral/pseuds/sinumbral
Summary: The Warrior of Light returns to the First in search of more information about her crystal, only to find she's not as alone in her quest for answers about the past--and the future--as she thought.Heavy spoilers for FFXIV Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal.
Relationships: Elidibus/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the revised version of this story. I'm planning on 8-ish chapters plus prologue and epilogue, though not yet certain exactly how I'm going to divide them up--that number may change by one in either direction.
> 
> Not many changes in this section; from chapter 1 on it will be much more noticeable!
> 
> A few tags and warnings will be added when I post the specific chapters for which they're relevant.

Amaurot has availed her nothing. For many hours she has wandered the city seeking any who would speak to her about the sole crystal she carries, or about the rest of the Convocation at all, but the shades of the Amaurotines, by now half-faded and harder still to understand, have no answers for her. She is loathe to ask the Scions what else they might know of the Ascians' history for fear of being hounded into revealing _why_ she's asking, and her contacts in Othard and Ilsabard have other things to worry about.

It's the Crystarium for her for tonight, then, and she'll return to the Source first thing in the morning; it's not particularly late and she has plenty of time to make it back to Revenant's Toll before dinner if she wanted, but in some ways this place feels more welcoming, more like home, than the world-shard of her birth ever was, and she has no wish to leave it behind so quickly. The First is remarkably free of the judgements that have followed her since her childhood: she is not wholly Viera, and her face is strong enough to serve as proof of her Garlean ancestry were her height insufficient. In Dalmasca, she had been regarded with the pity reserved for those born to unwilling trysts with the invading officers--at least until her mother had informed people, quite sharply and enunciated by a few taps of her saw, that the fling had been entirely consensual on _both_ sides, and the two had parted by circumstance rather than any heroic rescues.

Then they had only looked at her with scorn.

She had made a place for herself regardless, taking up one of her mother's finely-crafted bows and turning to a combination of hunting and courier work. So many joined the resistance efforts in search of glory that they were always in need of more hands willing to do the less glamorous duties, and every day she'd spent hidden and alone, or undercover, was a day she didn't have to deal with others' dismissals of her and her work. Even after travelling to Eorzea to determine how they'd beaten back the Empire, not once but twice, she was not free of it, and the Eorzeans, less familiar with Viera than the Ilsabardians had been, had added new insults to her lexicon of unwanted appellations.

Not here, though--here, necessity has driven people together, and beastman is a word long forgotten in Norvrandt, where it does not do to insult today those who might tomorrow save your life. Unwilling to give up on her search just yet, she makes her way to the Cabinet of Curiosity. Moren is as full of warm smiles, the sheer joy of knowledge, and Chessamile's slightly-minty energizing tea as ever and she cannot resist pulling him into an embrace, as much from the joy of seeing him as to watch him blush due to the effects of her height on such a maneuver.

But he has no more solid answers for her than do the fading Amaurotines. What he offers in its place is a thread of hope: he knows further tomes are locked within the Tower itself, full of knowledge the Exarch had deemed too dangerous if it were to fall into the hands of the Crystarium's enemies. There is less worry about that these days, and the Cabinet intends to look over the books to determine which are safe to move to the public collection, but none can yet bear to enter that blue spire in their grief for the loss of the man who once dwelt within.

Even Lyna is unwilling to accompany her, and so she climbs the innumerable stairs alone. Halfway up, she pauses; memories of the last trip flood back to her, and of how it ended. G'raha Tia is alive, he is safe, she knows this in her mind, but faced with that silent blue statue, there is no way to convince her heart of that truth, and she resolves to avoid it. She shouldn't need those upper floors anyways; the Exarch's private library is off of the Ocular, and while it's still a good way further up the tower than where she is, it's nowhere near the spire.

She keeps climbing.

She regrets her choice in clothes--her shoes are sturdy and support her feet well, but her gown is tight-laced at the bodice and full-skirted, a gift from Leveva on demonstrating her skill at reading the stars. She has hardly taken it off of late; it seems fitting, somehow, in light of recent revelations, and she idly wonders if the astrologians, Sharlayan or Ishgardian, might know more about the constellations of the Ancients.

The door to the Ocular groans more loudly, feels heavier in her hands than she remembers, no doubt the result of recent disuse. In the center of the room, she stops: more memories, this time accompanied by Urianger's words, only now the Scions are gone as well. This place feels empty and hollow without them, and the sound of her own breath echoes through the stone chamber--as does something else, and she startles. Behind her, the soft pattering of footsteps ceases.

Frjota Ulvloppe is not alone in the Ocular.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: discussions of suicide.

Frjota turns to look, and is so startled by the sight that her ears stand up a bit straighter, turned a bit outwards: Elidibus stands behind her, in the form she knows best, white robes taking on a soft blue hue from the light of the room. "I thought you were--" she says, managing to shut her mouth in time to avoid an unconscionable social gaffe.

"So too did I at first," the Ascian responds, voice as smooth and dark as ever. If this is a trick, an illusion, it's a fine one, well beyond her skill to pierce. "But what magics were cast bound me to the tower and with it, to life. I can neither leave nor die while the spell remains."

"Hmph," Frjota snorts, tossing her head a bit and setting her curls, presently a brilliant scarlet, to bouncing. "There are worse prisons; you've got plenty of books to read, rooms to explore, there's probably some old Allagan technology still stirring up trouble on the basement levels if you feel the urge to fight something..."

"All powered by the energies of the sun."

She's about to turn on her heel and leave him standing there alone when she recalls Emet-selch's words in the Greatwood. "It harms you then? Or weakens you? Or both."

His face turns towards her--she hates masks with a fiery passion and his is no exception, for she can't see where his gaze is pointed. "I possess barely a fraction of my former strength. Were we to fight again now, even alone you would not struggle to best me, though it would be to no consequence. The tower binds me as neatly as would auracite, slowing my aethers to near-stillness, and like auracite I shall be free only when it shatters."

"Free to die, you mean. Is that what you want?"

Elidibus' lips tighten and their corners turn slightly downward; around them, what's visible of his face pales. But his gaze does not seem to falter, hidden behind his mask though it is, and nor does he speak.

Her nostrils flare--more so than would any Hyur's, though not quite so much as a true Viera's would. But she is not unsympathetic to his plight. It would surely grate upon her just as badly to be stuck in Emet-selch's recreated Amaurot, malms from the wilderness, full of people who never change and never have anything new to say, unable to indulge her wanderlust... She understands, and when she looks down at him it's with a sad smile on her face. "You seemed to regain some portion of yourself there, at the end. Your memories, with the crystals..."

"Not a--" His voice cuts off in a sharp cry as he staggers; unthinking, Frjota reaches forth to grab his hands and arms to steady him. Thankfully he's more aware of his claws than she is, and she doesn't even remember he has them until she feels their cool pressure against her skin.

They're not nearly as sharp as she'd once imagined, in spite of their length.

"Forgive me," Elidibus says, voice more ragged now than it had been after fighting, "I am weak."

"You said you would struggle to _fight me_ , not that you would struggle merely to _stand_!" Frjota half-snaps, temper rousing as quickly as ever not in anger, but in frustration. She is not the nurturer her mother is, and she racks her brain to think of what should be seen to first. "Have you eaten? Had something to drink? Has anyone brought you food, or did you find some in the Exarch's quarters? Assuming you've been into them."

Another wave of tremors passes through the Emissary and he clings to her still more strongly; with as much care as she can muster, she guides him to the edge of the room to sit, grateful for her height and her strength, both more typical for a Garlean than a Viera. "Magic is," a pause, "quite beyond me, I fear; you see me only because of your gift and even then only in the way you know me best, and you are the first to enter this space in some time. The fountains on the lowest levels have no shortage of water, it would seem, though the descent is not a short one."

Half a lifetime of wandering has taught her the virtue of preparedness. The waterskin she carries had been freshly filled before she started her climb and she uncaps it, holding it out to him. "Why not just _stay_ down there, then? If it's this much of a struggle to return here."

"I do," he responds, taking it from her with gentle hands: again, he keeps his claws well clear of the leather. "As before, it was your presence which drew me here."

Frjota sits down at Elidibus' side, digging through her pouch until she finds a ration bar to thrust into his lap. "Drink. Eat. I can't take the sun's power away, but it might grant you _some_ strength at least. Or--" She stops mid-sentence as he gives the waterskin an odd look. "Don't tell me you're unfamiliar with even _that_ much?"

He stops staring at it, turning his face towards her again. "No, I am...quite well aware of the necessities of existing in the flesh. I simply was not expecting to partake of them while not bound by it. But the tower seems to necessitate that I do, for a time." He lifts it with both hands then, drinking deeply.

She cannot watch. He is the enemy--the greatest enemy she has yet faced, if his previous words are to be believed--and yet she has never done well faced with suffering. Her hunting knife has seen as much blood of tempered men as it has that of the beasts she hunts for food by now, and even in Ala Mhigo she refused to stand by while vigilantes enacted what vengeance they could on their former overlords. Part of her screams to finish what she and G'raha had started, to put him out of his misery, but she knows it's futile. If it could be done, Elidibus would have found a way himself by now.

So she quashes it and musters up what gumption she has. "I'll help you--figure out how to break the spell, I mean, so you can..." Her mouth and her words dry up mid-sentence, and she takes a second to recover them both. "...so you can die. But I want something for it. Information. If you don't remember anything, that's fine, I won't hold you to it if that's the case. But whatever you _do_ remember, I want to know."

How he senses the exact physical nature of her discomfort or if he merely guesses correctly she's not quite certain, but he certainly seems to and offers the waterskin back to her; she shakes her head in response. "No--keep it. It's..." ...a small comfort, a shred of dignity... "...yours. I have others."

The motions of his hands as he caps it are slow and careful, and when he's done he pulls it close to his chest, clinging to it--cradling it almost. The ration bar he gathers up between the claws of his thumb and forefinger; though they didn't seem sharp against her skin, they slice through the wax-paper wrapping with ease. "What is it you wish to know?"

"Do you accept, then?"

Elidibus has bitten off a chunk of the bar and was clearly intending to work at the chewy thing while he listened to her; her question catches him off-guard. "Mrf," he says, fighting with it, an undignified sound that brings a half-smile to Frjota's face, and then he tries again. "I will not aid an enemy. Which is not you." The qualifier comes right as her hackles start to raise, and she furrows her brows at his words.

"What do you mean, not me? I'm the one who's set myself against you these past years--I'm the reason you're _trapped in a tower at all_ ; if I'm not the enemy, then whom?"

He looks at her again, clearly searching her face, and she's sorely vexed by it, by how damnably unreadable he is and always has been in this form, bothered enough to scowl at him and cross her arms with a slight harumph. "Tell me what you wish to know," Elidibus repeats.

She'd stare _him_ down if she could but it's useless with that mask of his on; she can't find his eyes beneath it, so all she can do is reach back into her pouch for the orange-gold crystal, which she holds up before him between her fingers. "Tell me about it--as much as you can remember."

His lips fall open and he seems at a sudden and total loss for words, reaching forward to take it between his claws. She doesn't let go, but his touch ignites something in it, a faintly glowing light that seems to dance around the circle etched in its surface. "The crystal of Azem," he finally manages, voice soft, bordering on reverent. "I had thought it lost long ago..."

Frjota stares at it with wide golden eyes. "I haven't seen it do _that_ before."

"They react to each other. And to their owners--once they were impossible to lose, or to misplace. Thus did I use them to track down the shards of those members of the Convocation who were sundered, that they might be raised anew. That this one is clearly but a recreation of the original might explain its different behavior." The Emissary purses his lips, still tracing around the edge of the circle with a singular claw of his right hand, chasing the orbiting light. "Yes. I accept. Of all things, this should not be forgotten."

Frjota releases the stone, letting Elidibus have it; he's quick enough to move that it doesn't hit the ground but merely falls into his hand. He sets the half-eaten ration bar down in his lap, seemingly uncaring about the state of his white robes (until she remembers that they're not _real_ , _nothing about him_ is quite real, and she suddenly wonders what he really looks like, if not this and not the form she'd fought), and draws another crystal from a place she can't quite make out.

His own, she realizes--its light is more feeble than hers, and here in the Ocular it almost seems blue, a reflection of the walls and ceiling, until the two meet with a soft click and it takes on a soft golden hue.

 _Colorless_ , like a mirror, casting back whatever light is nearest in the absence of its own.

"I have not the strength to grant you its full power," he says, voice soft and solemn, "nor even to make use of my own. But I shall, if you permit it, before I go. You will have need of it, I think--that we have lost this war does not mean it is over." There is a brief pause as his mind wanders: an endlessly-branching tree of possibilities spreads out before him. "In fact I fear it has barely begun. More battles yet to fight..."

His voice trails off as he stares at the two rocks, seemingly entranced, and Frjota places one hand over them in an attempt to draw his attention back to her. "You've said that twice now, that you weren't fighting me, that there are other enemies. What do you _mean_?" Her temper is rising again, she can feel it, and she so badly wants to shake him in frustration until he spills his secrets out onto the star-patterned stone beneath them. But it would be worse than useless--such pressure as she wants to apply would surely have him scrambling back into hiding, into hibernation, away from her view, and so she waits.

"What, who, drove you to this--Hydaelyn, her summoners..." Elidibus' words are disjointed, incomplete phrases, and she struggles to follow his meaning at first. "You were only ever meant to be a tool, a means to keep Light and Dark in balance while we worked--you were never meant to see us. We could focus our attentions elsewhere..."

She cuts him off. "On the Rejoinings, you mean."

"And on preventing them from finding a way to undo our work, to sunder anew what had already been Rejoined, to recreate what she did so long ago."

"Venat, the heart of Hydaelyn. As you are, or were, the heart of Zodiark."

The Ascian nods, clenching his fist around the two crystals; his claws seem not to be a hindrance. "You have heard her name, then--good."

"I did, yes. On our first trip to Anamnesis Anyder, me and the Scions'. It was preserved in some sort of memory crystals. They activated on their own?" 

"A variation of concept matrices, likely keyed to your aetheric signature--though by _whom_? Still, I am grateful for it--I had feared I would have to begin anew with the telling, a part of my memory that has not yet seen fit to return to me. I mentioned before that I had withdrawn myself from Him. I did so at the moment of the Sundering, that I might not share His fate. It was not an act without consequences, though; some part of me remains there with him, and so I am not properly Unsundered, being only twelve parts of thirteen. But the differences in how it was done make the results...nearly inconsequential, to one such as you. I am still able to call upon that part of my strength, the part of me that remains His heart."

Frjota purses her lips. "Twelve of thirteen--the remainder of the Convocation!"

"Each of them offered up a part of themselves to become part of Zodiark, and I my whole self; in exchange, they received a part of Him--what you know as tempering--and thus also a part of me. I was...reconstituted from those pieces after the Sundering, primarily by Lahabrea and Igeyorhm."

He opens his hand again, offering Azem's crystal back to her; she takes it, pondering a moment and then asking, "How did Lahabrea and Emet-Selch survive, then, if not through the protections of Zodiark?"

He starts a bit in surprise at her question. "Lahabrea's lessers are in need of some correction, it seems," he muses to himself before continuing on. "Emet-Selch's ability to traverse the aetherial river served him well; while Hydaelyn turned her attention to the material world, he concealed himself within it, and returned to this plane once the Sundering was complete. As for Lahabrea...he possessed a remarkable ability to render the most complicated of concepts in such a way that they could be easily understood, he was a natural teacher, yet his first and truest passion was as a scholar. His studies took him deep into the nature of reality, and for the briefest of moments he embodied a paradox, at once existing and not existing. I don't think she quite knew what to do with him, and so left him be." By the end of Elidibus' recounting, there's half of a smile on his face, brought back with memories once lost to him.

And Frjota can't help but smile with him.

He stays like that for some time, smiling down at the stone in his hand. "I had forgotten so much of that time--and after so many millenia, it is you who have restored those memories to me. I owe you my thanks."

"If it's the stone doing it," Frjota asks, her tone frank, "why's it only happening now? Didn't you have one before? Isn't that how you," she waves her hand, "came to be what you are to begin with?"

He shakes his head slightly and the folds of his cowl shift a bit in the resulting breeze--a sign of the strength he's regaining from proper nourishment. "Like Azem's, my stone is a recreation. As I sacrificed myself to become Zodiark's heart, so too does the original form His core. It--the powers of the seat of Elidibus which it grants--such is the very thing that makes Him a primal."

Her brows furrow and her lips purse in a deep scowl. "Powers which you also possess--that would mean your becoming a primal was almost inevitable!"

"Indeed, and so the seat has always been, though I fear twelve millennia of sundered life have all but stripped its title of meaning." He settles back against the wall, pocketing the stone, looking almost entirely relaxed for the first time since her arrival. "You have sat down to the negotiating table, have you not? What do you consider to be the duties of an Emissary?"

Frjota regards him, not quite certain of what he's getting at--but if the Ancients appointed only the greatest of scholars to lead them, then Elidibus must surely be the most knowledgeable person still living, and she's not incurious enough to fail to take full advantage of _that_. The answer to his question seems obvious enough to her, and she gives it readily. "Why, to go before your enemy and state your position, of course."

The Ascian smiles at her, not unlike that day years ago when he favored her with a similar expression after she passed his trials in Thanalan: the slight grin of a teacher who has predicted his pupil's solution to every problem, including the wrong answers. "Is it now? And no doubt the Emissary of the other side will seek to do the same. How then do they make progress?"

"By speaking to one another, of course," she replies, crossing her arms loosely over her belly in annoyance.

"Truly the epitome of sundered self-centeredness," comes his response, but his tone suggests this was inevitable and all part of the lesson he intends to teach. "And yet before one speaks, is it not first important to listen? To understand your opponent's grievances?"

"--the Waking Sands! You expected us to meet you on that ground then, but...none of us wanted to understand _you_ , Minfilia and I most of all. Because of Hydaelyn's voice?"

"That I cannot say. At the time I thought you perhaps still too sundered to reach so far beyond yourselves, but more recent events have called that into question. Regardless," he chides, "such is not the point of this lesson, which was intended to be about my purpose and how I might be able to help you."

Frjota flushes, nose flattening as she gnaws at her lip a bit; she feels a schoolgirl in southern Ilsabard again, caught passing notes in class by her Garlean instructors. "Sorry, go on?"

He snorts, and even that sounds elegant coming from him. "The seat of Elidibus, then--in Amaurot it was my duty to serve not only as a mediator, but to bear the emotional weight of the Convocation and any who brought matters before it, that they might be discussed with a clear head. Unto myself I took their highest hopes and their deepest despairs in order that they might be conveyed more clearly to the council."

"And in becoming Zodiark--and then the primal Warrior of Light--that was merely an expansion of those duties, wasn't it? To carry the will of the people, of the very star itself, for salvation and restoration alike, a duty you remained bound to until I freed you from it, just as I freed Emet-Selch.

"Only to bind you here instead..."

He nods once. "Which means, in some sense, I am no longer Elidibus, or at least not the same Elidibus--a ...rebirth and Ascension, of sorts, into the role I fulfilled before the Sundering."

"Is that why you looked like a child?" she asks of him, having been curious about that particular...vision? ever since it had happened.

"Likely so, yes," he affirms before continuing on. "Even long ago I was ever reluctant to show myself; I more readily gave my name than removed my mask, for to bare my face was to reveal the full weight of the burdens I carried, and my brothers would surely worry about me. I assure you, I was not even the youngest of the Convocation at the time of appointment--that honor fell to Emet-Selch, who beat out Nabriales for it by a mere half-century, much to the latter's dismay. We were each of us the youngest to be chosen for their roles, and in quick succession, and a wiser man may have seen the portents in that. But we were perhaps blinder than we should have been, and we missed those signs. Only Azem, whose seat you now hold, foresaw some of what was to befall us, and for speaking on it we called him a harbinger of doom, cast him out and struck his name from our number."

Frjota gapes at him. "Me? A stone surely does not a seat make!"

Another smile, this one more cryptic than the last. "We could not strip Azem of the powers of his seat--nor did we try, for we knew if there was another way then surely he would find it as we could not, already bound to our purpose as we were. When the Sundering came, they remained intact, and so did each of his shards inherit them, though not at their full strength. It was that which I strove to reflect in becoming the first Warrior of Light, and it has been the defining trait of all such Warriors since. My last and clearest memories of the time before my sacrifice are of him--of striving to mediate between Azem and the remainder of the Convocation. They shaped who I became, in many ways, following my withdrawal from Zodiark."

"If that's the case, what purpose does this serve?" Frjota asks, showing him her stone once more; it still glows faintly. "What did you mean by granting it its full power?"

He hums--a soft, pure tone full of melancholy so deep she can nearly taste it. "You are sundered; Azem's powers are split between all shards of you. With it unlocked, you would be able to call upon what _all_ of those shards possess, not merely your own, though your own body's capacity for aether would remain a limiting factor. Regardless, you would be considerably more efficient at its use, able to accomplish much more with far less. Thus did we call the process Ascension, the approximation of the Unsundered in a sundered form."

She lowers the crystal to her lap, staring at it; it gleams pure orange-gold in spite of the blue of the Ocular, so like and yet unlike Elidibus' own. She's just opening her mouth to reply when he speaks once more, giving voice to the very words she'd been about to say.

"I have no doubt you will be as worthy of it as your predecessor. Still, all of that leaves me at a slight advantage over you for now, for I know both your title and your true name, and I would remedy that. Please: call me Lachesis."

"Lachesis," the Viera says, though her mouth can't quite shape the word in the same way his does. "It's a pretty name--I like it. I'm Frjota." A blush spreads across her copper cheeks. "But you knew that, of course."

"I have known it since Lahabrea's encounter with you in the Praetorium."

"But not before?"

She can't see Lachesis' blink of surprise through his mask, but she can feel it, or maybe she's just getting better at reading the motions of his mouth beneath that red beak. "No. That is when I was awakened--Sabik called to that part of me which is Zodiark and it resonated between that piece and this, disturbing me from where I slumbered."

Frjota laughs belly-deep, shaking a bit and sending tousled curls tumbling. "So Emet-Selch is not the only one given to a nice long nap."

"Managing the events surrounding each Rejoining takes much out of me; so many energies, in need of such delicate balance... Did I remain active between them, I would be useless when I was needed most. Instead, I rest between, a time of restoration and recovery. Had you not appeared when you did, I should no doubt have slipped into a similar hibernation now. Though as I am now bound by the Tower, it likely would have been an eternal one." He purses his lips. "You did not come here for me. Forgive me...I have held you up from some important duty."

"No, no," she responds, shaking her head. "I came wanting to learn more about Azem's crystal. You told me everything I could have hoped to find in the Exarch's library and more--thank you."

"Call it fate, then," Lachesis says, and by the tone of his voice Frjota feels like he's making a joke she doesn't understand. "You would have found nothing on it in the books there. They do contain however quite the legendarium of your own accomplishments, though I believe some to be rather embellished. I have had time to read many of them."

Frjota blushes much more deeply this time. "I hope the authors confined themselves to tales of my adventures in combat and diplomacy, however fanciful. You'll want something new to occupy your time then, as well as a delivery of food--painting supplies? Triple Triad solitaire?"

"I'm rather fond of a Doman pastime known as go, but it's unsuited for playing alone. Some manner of instrument would be nice. Flute or harp, perhaps?"

She nods. "A flute should be easy enough, and...you don't mind a novice bard's battle-harp, do you? Those are easy to find and portable. I can't imagine trying to lug a full-sized one here from the Source."

"Nor I." He sighs deeply, leaning his head back against the wall of the Ocular. "If only I had access to some small bits of magic, enough that I could while away the hours with the simplest acts of Creation...balls for juggling, blocks for building, a hoop to chase down the stairs as I did in the Akadaemia between lessons as a child..."

Another spate of returning memories, Frjota thinks, these quite incongruous with his present personality. She holds back laughter over the thought of an Ascian chasing a hoop around crowded corridors with a hand clamped over her mouth, determined not to distract him from that bit of joy. Eventually his voice trails off once more, and she looks to him. "I should be going--I'm expected back on the Source first thing in the morning, and I really should go tonight but it's quieter here on the First. I'll make sure someone's come by with actual food before I leave, not just," she waves a hand at the half of a ration bar he's still holding, "that. I'll be back as soon as I can, though. I promise; I...want to learn more. About Azem, and about Amaurot."

 _About you_ , she doesn't say as she pulls herself to her feet, brushing non-existent dust off her gown and smoothing what wrinkles remain from how she sat in it. Lachesis says nothing, only hums a bit: a single pure note, wholly unlike the speech of the Amaurotines, so heavily laden with emotion that she nearly staggers under its weight, all of the hope and trust that he yearns to give but _can't_ yet, not so soon.

She understands, she hopes, and as she descends the stairs of the Crystal Tower, she can think of nothing else. Halfway across the Exedra on her way back to the Pendants, she pauses, looking back up towards the section of the Tower where the Ocular lays.

The energy it expends to bind its lone occupant is apparent, now that she knows what to look for: its spires are wreathed in brilliant blue lightning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter 24 Nov!


	3. Chapter 2

Frjota returns to the Rising Stones amidst the clamor of dropped dishes in the Seventh Heaven; the newest server is an Ishgardian girl who's recently escaped an unwanted marriage, and she's better with an embroidery needle than she is with the washing-up. Regardless, she's earnest and has a smile for everyone, and the plates the tavern uses are unlikely to break at even the roughest handling.

It's not the peace and quiet Frjota wants, though, and she pushes her way through the back door to collapse into a chair with a soft sigh. She's barely managed to shut her eyes when she hears the chair across from her scraping across the floor, and she cracks one open, regarding the man sitting across from her with a slitted golden look.

"I was surprised to learn you wished to visit the First again so swiftly," G'raha Tia says, "and so suddenly as to leave without informing anyone other than Hoary Boulder of your plans. Had I known you were going, I would have asked you to check in on certain things for me."

"It's peaceful there," she responds. "There's little chance that word will come from Ala Mhigo or Doma about Garlemald's latest attempts to stir up trouble, and if something dire does happen here, I'm sure the pixies will see fit to inform me at once. And, well. I left so _suddenly_. I never really got a chance to explore it as a place in its own right, it was always on to the next fight. I want to hike the mountains in Kholusia, and go swimming in Rak'tika--properly, not just on some grand quest--and fall asleep under the stars in Amh Araeng. You know? And if it's Moren you're asking after, Moren never changes."

It's the wanderlust in her that G'raha knows so well--that he shares, that pulled him from Sharlayan in the first place and has driven him to find a new home amongst the Scions. "Indeed, having dealt with the threat of the Ascians the quiet here on the Source does feel rather like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You're intending to return periodically, then?"

"I do," Frjota says, "though I've a few other visits I'd like to make first. Gridania for new bowstrings. Francel has invited me to Ishgard to speak a few words at the next phase of his restoration project." She blushes at the last--she'd fancied herself in love with him once, with his smiling face that seemed straight from one of the Church's illuminated hagiographies and his ardent devotion to duty. But it wasn't meant to be; the same duties which drove her interest bound him to the city of his birth as strongly as her own kept her on the road, and they'd parted as close friends. "I've considered taking up the lance again. It seems...useful, and if I want to expand my skills, there's no better place for it, and the morbols near Idyllshire make good practice targets--sluggish enough to be fairly easy kills but dangerous enough to keep me on my toes."

She doesn't mention the man in the Tower, nor her intent to visit the Gubal Library for research and perhaps a few volumes that might interest him. Of all the Scions, Y'shtola might best understand her desire to help him, or at least to learn all she can from him, and she wishes she knew how to approach the blind Miqo'te for aid. But she doesn't know how to prove his inability--or unwillingness--to cause harm, and to too many here, he is an enemy, even in defeat.

"A bit of combat might serve you well," comes Alisaie's voice as she joins them, leaning on the table by Frjota, "if being out of it so long has got you this gloomy. Don't I know the feeling, though, always looking forward to the next challenge." She levels an imaginary sword at G'raha. "Either of you care for a spar? Loser's got mess duty!"

"Sure," the Viera says, pulling herself to her feet. "Let me grab my lance--if Alberic finds out how rusty I've gotten, I'll never live it down."

* * *

Alisaie had delivered to Frjota such a drubbing in the first round of their spar that the Viera had feared she'd never recover, but her skills slowly returned to her and by the end, she'd knocked off enough rust that even Alberic had found little to fault on her next visit. Her visit to Gridania had gone equally smoothly; she made her way to Ishgard with not only fresh strings for her bow, but a small flute and harp of the sort the Hearers sometimes played to soothe the elementals. Ishgard itself had been beyond bustling, between the workmen arriving from all over Eorzea to take part in the next phase of the Restoration and the commoners clamoring for a shot at the new houses and the members of Parliament all seeking to appear the most benevolent before their subjects with feasts and dances and building projects of their own.

It was Ehll Tou who'd found her sitting on the outer wall of the New Nest, looking out over the snow-covered Coerthan plains, and on a whim she'd shared...well, the _basics_ , at least, of her plight with the dragonet. To Frjota's surprise, she'd landed on the wall, tucked her tail up around herself like some scaly cat, and looked up with her with wide eyes. "Well," she asked, "are you trying to help people, or hurt them?"

"Help, obviously!" Frjota had exclaimed, brushing snowflakes off of her copper skin--the cold was her least favorite thing about Ishgard. "But am I helping the right person? What if all of this is just an act, a setup for betrayal? Ascians..." The words hung in her throat. "...Ascians lie."

Elidibus. _Lachesis_ , who still struggled to conceal so much of himself from her, and at so great a cost to himself. Even in pain his mouth had barely twisted; she had seen no tears as his memories returned to him, and he buried the truth of his weakness in carefully-chosen words. But to what purpose were his prevarications--a preface to striking, or an attempt to avert _being struck at_?

A red-orange wing tapped her in the leg, disrupting her thoughts. "Ascians lie, and dragons eat people. But there's always more to the story, is there not?"

"I can't imagine you eating a Moraby mole, pests that they are. I've learned some things, but every answer I get seems to only leave me with a dozen more questions. At what point does pursuing them become too dangerous? When it leads you straight into the lair of the enemy?"

Ehll Tou leapt up from the wall and did a little backflip in the air before resuming her hovering. "You might want to ask somebody else that question--after all, that is _exactly_ why I came to Ishgard!"

And so Frjota had left Ishgard behind--Ishgard and the Restoration and Francel, beautiful sweet Francel--and made her way to Idyllshire at last. The Dravanian Hinterlands feel different, with what she knows now about Amaurot and the Akadaemia; the morbols seem relics frozen in a time long-forgotten, and the halls of the Great Gubal Library seem to differ from Anyder's only in scale and the ever-present scent of mouldering pages.

She'd come here looking for books that might be relevant to the problem at hand, and she finds them aplenty--few enough works about Allag itself, long believed a myth, but no few covering the marvels of its magitek (and the Garlean implementations thereof) and far more than she can count on the usage of crystals in channelling energy. She stuffs some of the most promising into her bag, alongside enough skatene feathers to fletch an army's worth of arrows, and settles down to the most challenging part of her task here: something Lachesis might enjoy reading. One of the volumes on Garlean magitek, it turns out, details the reconstruction of an ancient Allagan musical instrument in the palace; that one Frjota adds immediately to the 'Keep' pile. So too go the first and third volumes of _Sites of Historical Sorcery_ , which seem fitting for an academic; the second volume is slimy, and she doesn't care to examine why too closely.

She's on her way out again when something catches her eye; someone has brushed enough of the dust off of a hand-bound tome so its gold-leafed pages catch her eye, and then left it sitting on the floor. _Folktales from Foreign Lands_ , the front cover proclaims it to be, and the illustrations inside remind her of the childrens' books from the First. The stories are all penned by different hands; a few of them read more like journal entries than storytellers' accounts, and she can't find the thread to follow to piece them together into a coherent whole until she turns back to the beginning.

_Accounts of Champions of Light and Darkness_.

Frjota can't shove it into her pack quickly enough, though she tries to take enough care not to damage the surely-fragile pages. She's on her way out of the Library when her linkpearl chimes. "You have to come back quick," Tataru's voice rings out from it. "Revenant's Toll is under attack!"

She takes off for the boundaries of the Library's enchantments as quickly as her feet can carry her.

* * *

Frjota flings her pack to the ground beside the Revenant's Toll aetheryte as soon as she emerges, stringing her bow as she runs towards the southeastern gate where the sounds of pitched battle can be heard. The portcullis is closed, denying the attackers entry into the town itself, and she bounds up the stairs onto the wall for a better position from which to shoot--only to draw up short as she realizes the nature of the foes she faces.

Sin Eaters.

There's no time to contemplate why or how; she climbs a tower and launches volley after volley of arrows into the oncoming wave of white, grateful that the terrain thins them out on the final approach. She's relieved to find the researchers of St Coinach's Find flinging spells at her side; their encampment may need rebuilding, but at least the people themselves are safe. Several machinists are there too, headed up by a Garlean whose ruffled skirts are slit to her thighs, revealing a knife as long as Frjota's forearm and a flask sized for a Sea Wolf. A Duskwight keeps the time, dancing to a music only he can hear, chakrams slicing through the mass of beasts; his movements make war look like art, and she yearns to watch him more some time.

Slowly but surely, they thin the enemy's ranks into nothingness; by the time they descend from the ramparts, she is sagging with exhaustion, as are most of those who fought alongside her. She rejoins the Scions in the plaza, where she's quickly escorted into the Seventh Heaven, which Krile and Tataru have taken over for a makeshift infirmary. Alphinaud is the last to join them as the two Lalafell press replenishing tonics into their hands, and he looks as tired as Frjota feels. "I can't say I was expecting that welcoming party," he says with a wry grin.

"And yet there can be no doubt as to the nature of our foe," Y'shtola says. "But their attacks seem uncoordinated, and I noticed no Lightwarden amongst them."

"They just rushed both gates, trying to break through!" Alisaie responds as she half-collapses beside her brother. "At least none of the injured show any signs of transforming."

Indeed, the injuries are remarkably few for the length of the battle. There's a Highlander with an axe, clearly caught up in the beast rage by the southwestern gate; the Garlean woman who'd fought alongside Frjota tends the lesser injuries while a young conjurer tends to his ravaged leg, and she spares a grin for the Scions. "I wouldn't've married him if he wasn't so reckless," she says, "nor likely even met him!" The conjurer turns to look at her also, and beneath his hood she can see the shapes of horns: a Padjal. He presses a finger to his lips and goes back to healing in silence. There are two Miqo'te sisters as well, a pair of monks who'd attempted some reconnaissance from the air only to see their chocobos fall to some of the flyers. Stranded on the far side of the wall, they'd held their own until the Sin Eaters' numbers fell enough for them to make a break for town; both are exhausted and bleeding, but neither boasts major injuries.

It's Urianger who speaks next. "Indeed--their attack didst seem exploratory in nature, rather than an attempt to seize control of the town. But there doth exist in Eorzean bestiaries no recent account of such beasts. For that, one must turn their gaze back to the Fifth Astral Era, to the city of Amdapor."

Frjota feels the eyes on her before she sees them; turning her head towards the Rising Stones proper, she spots a small figure garbed all in white standing in the doorframe. Unukalhai is watching them, and she gives him a small encouraging smile. "The balance is off, isn't it?" he asks, voice clear if a bit shaky. "Light and Dark. Someone has to keep it in check, but you're all Light, and all the Ascians are gone. It's like with the Thirteenth--too much Dark, and you get Voidsent. Too much Light--"

"--and Sin Eaters emerge," Urianger cuts in. "In eradicating the Ascians we forestalled the Calamity of Light on the First, acting on the presumption that Black Rose did form the impetus of their operation here and that without them it would flounder."

Frjota frowns. "Ser Estinien reported on the destruction of the factories, and Gaius Baelsar corroborated every word in his own account without knowing of what I'd already learned."

Y'shtola taps her chin. "It would seem we are missing a piece of the puzzle. Frjota, return to the First, determine if there have been any new reports of Sin Eaters there--if someone is capable of summoning them across the shards as is done with Voidsent, that would be the most obvious source. Krile, G'raha Tia, and I will set our minds to the question of who might have done such summoning, or whether they were perhaps turned here on the Source. Urianger--any records of Amdapor you might possess, now is the time to share them. The rest of you should make ready for another attack. I suspect this was but a test of our defenses."

"I'll send word to the Grand Companies at once," Alphinaud says, "to be on the watch for attackers of an aetheric nature. Thankfully they are used to receiving reports from me that are rather scant on details."

"I'll carry the one for Ala Mhigo back with me myself," the Garlean woman says, "and if they won't listen I'll _make_ them listen. I'm Flavia, by the way, defected years ago, Karsten and I've been helping others get out ever since. Most come here or..."

Frjota tunes her voice out; from the doorway, Unukalhai is still looking at her, fully-masked face no less readable than his master's half-masked one. A sudden sound, like the snapping of bone echoing through infinite hallways of crystal, has her jumping, and when she looks back at the boy he's gone, door clicking shut behind him. "Did you..." she starts to ask, but the conversation continues unabated, and nobody seems to have noticed the noise.

Except for her.

"Right, I'll grab my things and be off then," she says, hurrying back to the aetheryte plaza before anyone can say otherwise. The ferry ride across the lake seems to take forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay! I completely forgot about the holiday last week when I put up the initial posting date.
> 
> Next chapter 15 December, but please look forward to some bonus content before then!

**Author's Note:**

> Ch 1 coming on 17 November.


End file.
